Is it okay to build deck stairs without cutting notches into the stringers?

Cutting into a 2x12 for a standard saw-tooth stringer feels like you are weakening the board, but it is acutally much more structurally sound than trying to scab on individual blocks. When you leave the stringer solid and just screw triangles to the top, you are relying entirely on the shear strength of your fasteners rather than the structural integrity of the wood itself. A notched stringer transfers the weight directly down trough the wood to the landing, whereas the block method forces the screws to do all the heavy lifting. Fastening into the end grain of those support blocks is a recipe for disaster. Over time, the dynamic load of people walking up and down those stairs will cause the screws to pull or the wood to split right along the grain. Unless you are using heavy-duty timber screws and steel hurricane ties for every single step, those blocks are going to want to slide or rotate right off the sloped face of the stringer. It is alot of extra work for a design that is fundamentally fighting against gravity and geometry. For an outdoor deck, you also have to worry about water management. Every one of those seams between the block and the stringer is a place for moisture, dirt, and organic gunk to collect. It never dries out in those tight gaps. You will end up with rot inside the joint long before a traditional cut stringer would have failed. If you are worried about the notch splitting, the fix is to use a high-quality pressure-treated 2x12 and make sure you have at least 5 inches of **uncut throat** left after you make your cuts. If you realy want that solid-side look, the way to do it is a housed stringer or just using the solid board as a decorative skirt outside of your structural cut stringers. But trying to skip the notches by mounting blocks to the top is basically just creating a dozen tiny points of failure. Stick to the traditional cut method, seal your cuts with a copper naphthenate **wood preservative**, and use some stair gauges to keep your layout consistent. It is faster, safer, and will not have you rebuilding the whole thing in three years.

If you're truly insistent on maintaining the structural cross-section of an un-notched 2x12, you shold look into galvanized steel stair brackets—specifically somethig like the Simpson Strong-Tie TA series—instead of fabricating timber cleats wich, as previously noted, suffer from catastrophic grain orientation issues.

By utilizing these heavy-gauge connectors, you effectively bypass the mechanical connection failures inherent in timber-on-timber blocking while simultaneously achieving a level of lateral stability that a standard notched stringer might lack if your tread-to-stringer fastening schedule isn't meticulously executed with appropriate structural screws. Just ensure your riser height remains perfectly consistent across the entire flight, as even a minor 1/8-inch deviation will become a persistent tripping hazard that no amount of structural over-engineering can rectify.

If you're dead set on avoiding the saw-tooth look and want somthing that won't rot out or split, just grab the Pylex Steel Stair Stringers. I used them on a lakefront deck last summer where the humidity is brutal. They’re basically indestructible compared to wood. You get that clean, solid look you're after without the headache of custom blocks or worrying about the throat depth on a 2x12. Plus, they install way faster than layout and cutting ever will.

Seen plenty of guys ruin a good 2x12 by over-cutting those inside corners with a circular saw. That’s exactly where the splitting starts. If you’re worried about strength, do what we did back when—cut your notches but stop shy of the line and finish it off clean with a sharp handsaw. Keeps the 'meat' of the board intact. And for heaven's sake, give your treads a slight pitch forward. We used to do that on every exterior job to keep the rain from sitting in the joints. If the water can't pool, the wood won't rot. Simple as that.

Quick update—I looked into those Simpson brackets someone mentioned. They seem like a solid middle ground since I'm still paranoid about the shear strength of wooden cleats. If I use those instead of cutting, do I need to worry about the hardware rusting out faster than the wood? I'd rather avoid those steel stringers if I can keep it all timber.